We at the Idler are great fans of poet Murray Lachlan Young, who’ll be entertaining Idler audiences at our Spring Party at Bush Hall later this year. Murray is poet in residence at BBC 6 Music and will be familiar to festival-goers. Chrissie Hynde called him a “rock n roll poet of our time”. His collection How Freakin’ Zeitgeist Are You? is now out in paperback and is a must-have in our view. We reproduce an excellent poem from it below. 

Get Your Ukulele Out
by Murray Lachlan Young

Looking for a hobby sir?
Tired of who you thought you were?
Something that says: bright and cheery?
Wholesome light and quite un-dreary?

Move away from hard and clunky
Try a thing that’s cute and funky
Choose without the slightest doubt
To get your Ukulele out

Got Balsamic in the larder?
Get your Ukulele out!

Knitting classes, trying harder?
Get your Ukulele out!

Cast aside your television
Grasp your post bucolic vision
Artisan and reconstructed
Grab the tool and be inducted

Heed the growing joyful shout
Get your Ukulele out!

Slip into some dungarees
Get your Ukulele out!

Learn the chords with growing ease
Get your Ukulele out!

Mindfulness. Perhaps Pilates?
Woodwork for the middle classes
Taxidermy? Try a mouse.
‘Mumfordise’ your lovely house

Grow a beard and bake a tart
Form a band and climb the charts
Too much money in the bank
Imagine that your name is hank

Get your Ukulele out
Get your Ukulele out.
Get your Ukulele out.
Get your Ukulele out.

Click here to be the first to read our Book of the Week extracts. How Freakin’ Zeitgeist Are You (Unbound, £8.99) is available to buy here.